3 NATO service members, Afghan official killed

KABUL, Afghanistan » A spate of attacks across Afghanistan on Sunday killed three NATO service members, an Afghan government official and three police officers, officials said.

Two NATO service members died from a bomb and an insurgent attack in the south, while the third was killed in an insurgent attack in the east, the coalition said in a statement.

NATO did not provide further details or the nationalities of the dead. The coalition typically waits for national authorities to make such announcements.

The latest deaths bring to 15 the number of international service members killed so far this month. So far this year, 286 international troopers have been killed in Afghanistan.

In the northwest, meanwhile, an Afghan district government's top official was killed by a roadside bomb while driving to his office in what appeared to be a targeted attack.

The bomb was remotely detonated as the vehicle carrying Mohammad Dawood, the chief of Muqur district in Badghis province, passed by. Dawood was killed in the blast and four others in the vehicle were wounded, said Sharafuddin Majidi, a provincial government spokesman.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but it was characteristic of insurgent strikes against government officials seen as collaborators with the international forces in the country.

And in the volatile southern city of Kandahar, a roadside bomb killed three police officers early Sunday, said Gen. Abdul Raziq, the provincial police chief.

In the southwest, at least one Afghan deminer was killed from a group of more than 30 who were kidnapped last week in Farah province.

Local officials found the body of one of the missing deminers and reported that four others were believed killed, provincial spokesman Nabiullah Farahi said. The 32 members of a private Afghan de-mining team were ambushed July 6 while driving to a work site in the province. None have been released, Farahi said.

And in Ghazni province in the east, officials said a daylong gunbattle on Saturday ended with four Taliban fighters killed. There were no dead among Afghan forces, said Sayed Abrar Agha, the head of a group that coordinates provincial security operations with international forces.